China and the World’s emerging middle class

Chinese middle class consumers = 300 million people (out of 1.2 billion), the total size of the US. They say “the planet cannot afford another United States.” Well, now it has two at least. An they will build one new McDonald’s EVERY DAY within 5 years. Any complacency or talk of “vegan victory” or “revolution” is nonsense; start to face the facts so you can fight with clarity not in a utopian state of denial.

“Present estimates of “middle class” in China range from 100 million to 247 million, depending on how much income renders one “middle class.” Assuming that an income of about$9000 is necessary to be considered middle class, China could have over 600 million middle class citizens by 2015. The China State Information Center, by contrast, considers those earning 50,000 yuan ($6,227) per year to be middle class – and expects 25% of the populace to qualify by 2010.

Estimates of the size and growth rate of China’s middle class vary. Roughly half of China’s projected urban population will be middle class in 2025. Unlike the United States, where income typically peaks between the ages of 45 to 54, it is predicted that the wealthiest consumers in China will be between 25 to 44 years old because the younger generation will be more highly educated.

The meteoric rise in China’s middle class is tied to dramatic increases in its per capita income, which is growing at a nearly unprecedented rate. The first industrial revolution created a 250% increase in per capita income over a 100 year period. The second industrial revolution triggered 350% per capita income growth over 60 years. By comparison, China is on track to create a 700% growth in per capita income in just 20 years.

Chinese households currently save 25% of their post-tax income, according to the China Statistical Yearbook. A survey by McKinsey indicated that this high savings rate was driven, in part, by Chinese citizens’ belief that they need to set aside funds for retirement and healthcare expenses. If these expenses do not rise as rapidly as income levels, then Chinese consumers may have a surplus of funds that they are willing to spend. And, if health care costs do rise, the Chinese healthcare sector may be an attractive investment. ”

Fuck this corrupt, omnicidal, nihilistic, corporate-controlled, fascist world-system; you don’t reform evil, you destroy it. Not a chance in hell to create a culture of life until we destroy the culture of death. Disease has consumed the entire body of civilization. We live among ruins, we inhabit a graveyard, an apocalyptic wasteland strewn with corpses, carrion, and zombies.

We need to focus like a laser beam on a grim truth: whatever the gains of a worldwide environmental and animal rights movements throughout the last four decades, they have nonetheless continued to lose ground in the battle to save biodiversity, to stop or even slow down the destruction of the rainforests, topsoil, coral reefs; to prevent ever-worsening resource wars; to end the blatant and open war and Holocaust against nonhuman animals; and to come to grips with the immanent catastrophe of climate change in our minds let alone our policies and actions.

The sense of urgency is rising in proportion to the severity of the crisis. Increasingly, calls for legislative change, moderation, compromise, and taking the slow march through the institutions can be seen as grotesquely inadequate, as growing numbers of people gravitate toward more radical tactics of change. “Reasonableness” and “moderation” in the current situation seem to be entirely unreasonable and immoderate, as “extreme” and “radical” actions appear simply as necessary and appropriate.

From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation.

Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.